Co‐Authorship in Management and Organizational Studies: An Empirical and Network Analysis*

Abstract

In recent decades there has been growing interest in the nature and scale of scientific collaboration. Studies into co‐authorship have taken two different approaches. The first one attempts to analyse the reasons why authors collaborate and the consequences of such decision (Laband and Tollison, 2000). The second approach is based on the idea that co‐authorship creates a social network of researchers (Barabási et al., 2002; Moody, 2004; Newman, 2001). In this study we have carried out an exploratory analysis of co‐authorships in the field of management from the two aforementioned approaches. The results obtained show a growing tendency of the co‐authored papers in the field of management, similar to what can be observed in other disciplines. Our study analyses some of the underpinning factors, which have been highlighted in the literature, explaining this tendency. Thus, the progressive quantitative character of research and the influence of the collaboration on the articles' impact are enhanced. The network analysis permits the exploration of the peculiarities of the management in comparison with other fields of knowledge, as well as the existing linkages between the most central and prominent authors within this discipline.